This document defines ecology as the study of interactions between organisms and their environment. It describes key ecological terms including biotic factors like living species, abiotic non-living things, biomes as large geographic areas with similar climates and ecosystems. It also defines organism, population, community, ecosystem, habitat, producers that create energy-rich molecules, consumers that eat other organisms, decomposers that consume wastes and dead organisms, predators that hunt for food, prey that is hunted, herbivores that eat producers, carnivores that eat other animals, omnivores that eat both, food chains as a sequence of eating and being eaten, and food webs as complex networks of interconnected food chains.

1. Ecology

2. Define Ecology
• study of the interactions that take place
among organisms and their
environment

3. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Biotic- living species
• Abiotic- non living things

4. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Biome- large geographic areas with similar
climates and ecosystems

5. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Organism – one of any living thing
• Population - all the organisms that belong
to the same species living in a community
• Community - all the populations of
different species that live in an ecosystem

6. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Ecosystem - all the living organisms that
live in an area and the nonliving features
of their environment

7. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Habitat - place where an organism lives and
that provides the types of food, shelter, moisture,
and temperature needed for survival

8. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Producer - organism, such as a green
plant or algae, that uses an outside source
of energy like the Sun to create energy-
rich food molecules

9. consumer
• - organism that cannot create energy-rich
molecules but obtains its food by eating
other organisms

10. decomposer
• Decomposer – consume wastes and
dead organisms

12. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Predator – an animal that hunts and kills
other animals for food. A predator is a
consumer [carnivore or omnivore]
• Prey – an animal that is hunted and
caught for food. Prey is a consumer; it
may be a herbivore, omnivore, or
carnivore.

13. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Herbivore – eat producers ( veg)
• Carnivore – animals eat other animals(
Non veg)
• Omnivore – eat producers and
consumers (both vg and non veg)

14. Describe each of the following
terms:
• Food chain – sequence of eating and
being eaten in an ecosystem
• Food web - Complex network of many
interconnected food chains